admin One of the best movies of 2023 is also one of the best sneaker movies of all time: Air, the inspirational sports drama about the true story of how Nike landed Michael Jordan to the most consequential sneaker deal ever signed. Matt Damon stars as Sonny Vaccaro, the schlubby but tenacious Nike marketing guy who parlayed his gift for scouting into a hugely ambitious plan to sign a generational talent, and a sizable portion of the movie’s running time is dedicated to the conceiving, designing, and building of the original Air Jordan 1, the sneaker that gives the movie its name and has given many sneaker fans’ lives meaning.
So it’s probably no surprise that Ben Affleck, who both directed Air and co-starred in it as Nike founder Phil Knight, is something of a sneaker fan himself. He showed off his impressive shoe collection with pride during the promotional tour for the movie—so much so that he sent the online sneakerhead community into an uproar by appearing on live TV wearing an unholy combination of the classic Air Jordan 1 Chicago and the much-coveted Travis Scotts, which no one had ever so much as seen before, let alone wore. It was as if to make clear that Affleck was no mere amateur collector. The guy has the kind of access to grails reserved for big-time insiders alone.
